Community land, crucial to rural livelihood around the world, is increasingly targeted by commercial interests. Its loss can lead to environmental degradation, increased rural poverty and land disputes that last for years. Without formal legal recognition of their land rights, communities struggle to protect their land from being allocated to outside investors.

Women disproportionately bear the negative impacts of large-scale land investments (in agribusiness, extractives, logging) in the global South.

▪▪Lack of formal land rights and their subordinate role in the household and community lead to the marginalization of women in decision-making processes and the bypassing of them in the distribution of compensation and the planning and implementation of resettlement.

Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document.

From January 15 to February 6, 2018, the USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change Program and Land Portal Foundation co-facilitated a dialogue on experiences of documenting household and community-level customary rights in Zambia. The dialogue brought together the perspectives of government, traditional leaders, practitioners, civil society, and academics to consider how customary land documentation can contribute to national development goals and increased service delivery in rural and peri-urban areas.

This report documents the violent clashes between members of farmer communities and members of herder communities in parts of Nigeria, particularly in the northern parts of the country, over access to resources: water, land and pasture. It also documents the failure of the Nigerian government in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility of protection of lives and property by refusing to investigate, arrest and prosecute perpetrators of attacks.

This moderated online dialogue was facilitated by Phuhlisani NPC in association with the Land Portal. Phuhlisani NPC has drafted this report on the key issues surfaced through the dialogue. 

Dialogue objectives
The dialogue provided an online forum to explore different perspectives on the content of a pro-poor programme of land reform programme that can:

Asegurar los pastizales es un  importante debate en curso, debido a la compleja planificación que su uso necesita y la falta de reconocimiento o protección. En un debate en línea del 29 de enero al 14 de febrero de 2018, 38 participantes de 4 continentes debatieron sobre los principales desafíos, soluciones y lecciones aprendidas, así como sobre vías para plataformas multiactores. La minería y la expansión de los cultivos son las mayores amenazas para los pastizales, que se derivan de la afección a de corredores de movilidad, el acaparamiento de tierras y la marginación de los pastores.

La sécurisation des pâturages est un débat important en cours, en raison de la planification complexe nécessaire à leur utilisation et du manque de reconnaissance ou de protection. Lors d'un débat en ligne du 29 janvier au 14 février 2018, 38 participants de 4 continents ont débattu des principaux enjeux, des solutions et des leçons apprises, ainsi que des voies pour les plateformes multi-acteurs.

Date: 2018

Source: Foncier & Développement

Cette note de synthèse reprend les présentations et les débats qui ont nourri l’atelier sur les trajectoires de politiques foncières en Afrique de l’Ouest et à Madagascar, organisé du 15 au 19 janvier 2018 à Saint-Louis du Sénégal, à l’initiative du Comité technique « Foncier & développement » de la Coopération française (CTFD).

The outcome statement for GLF Bonn 2018, featuring the key insights and takeaways from the event that took place December 1-2.

This guide (volume 1) aims to equip land rights advocates, development practitioners and stallholder farmers and indigenous people’s communities with the necessary knowledge, attitude, and skills on Community Mapping and Participatory Geographic Information System (PGIS). It focuses on data collection, database management, data processing, and analysis for the production of digital maps useful in advancing the land rights agenda of rural communities, particularly indigenous communities and smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia.